


One by One

by Dana



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Episode Related, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 08:45:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2766935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dana/pseuds/Dana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stuck in the process of moving on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One by One

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe kind of angsty, Rose's POV, alludes to things that happened after "Doomsday” as well as through "The Last of the Time Lords”, "Turn Left” and "Journey's End”, if at times only vaguely and in passing. Dimension jumping. Was going to lead into something else of mine that, as far as I can tell, will never be written.

'Sweetheart.'

Some days she just wants to roll back over and pull her duvet up high. To stop feeling and to stop remembering. _The thing he didn't say_. To maybe finally get on with her life.

'Sweetheart. Rose. You can't stay in bed all day – you have to at least try.'

This day, though, is not one of those days.

'Just five more minutes, mum,' she grouches like a small child. 'Please.' Because she's still stuck on a beach in Norway, and it's the worst day of her life and it always will be, because he hadn't even said goodbye. One more day, sick, sick, _sick_ , and it's only her heart that aches.

When she goes back Mickey and Jake will make sure to take her out to lunch for chips and there will probably be a beer or two, which she'll insist on not drinking only for her resolve to be wheedled down. Because she might not feel like smiling but it's easy enough to accomplish when you act like you're just putting on a show.

Five more minutes. Just five more minutes. She'll take those five more minutes, and then she'll tell herself to start acting like an adult.

Because that's all being an adult is – acting. And she can do that.

Her mum sighs, relents, 'alright sweetheart, five more minutes,' and pats the part of the duvet that probably covers Rose's shoulder.

––––––––––

Five more minutes, and she gets up.

She helps her mum with Tony on days where she doesn't make her way into work. A life spent as an only child hadn't prepared her for the sudden change a younger sibling presents. She treated it like one more challenge, one more thing she could fake.

Hardly faking it, though. Tony is a silly little boy, and even as a baby she swears he hangs on her every word. Wraps his little fingers around her much bigger ones. And she has a captive audience when she's minding him, and he never tells.

Her little brother is going to grow up on stories of a man he'll never ever know.

She tells him about apple grass on New Earth, how she visited New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York with the New New Doctor. She tries to explain regeneration to someone who can't possibly understand. And she tells him about the nice-but-nasty cat nuns who only wanted to heal the world. And the nasty-and-certainly-not nice Cassandra, a sympathetic figure in her own right.

And gas mask children. And werewolves. And then she ate the whole of time –

Wait, no, that last isn't right.

'And it all started,' she says, bouncing him on her knee, 'one day in my old shop, cause he grabbed my hand and told me to _run_.'

––––––––––

She dreams about running, a lot, and starts working at Torchwood. She runs to work (actually she takes a car) and there's the welcome back shindig, and she shouldn't be getting treated like a cripple just because she's got a somewhat dented heart. She throws herself back into it to find something to lose herself in.

Mickey and Jake do sometimes to take her out for chips at lunch, and if it's a busy day and she's drowning in paper work, they might bring it to her instead. Just to see her smile. She knows Mickey wonders if he's lost her forever. She knows Jake wonders the same thing, at least about Mickey. There's some things she can't be for Mickey, and some things he can't be for Jake.

They spend a lot of time uncovering lost pockets of Cybermen. And the odd alien incursion. She saves her team's life one day through quick thinking and a bit of luck and she's promoted to team leader. Something about how Pete Tyler treats his girl. Her team ( _her team_ ) tell her to not listen to that nonsense.

So she doesn't.

She dreams about the darkness before it ever starts creeping, and the stars get eaten, winking out, one by one.

She wakes sometimes tasting sea air and salt, two different things – and she wonders that, if she can't be happy, can't she at least be content?

––––––––––

The dimension cannon is a surprise.

It's just something they're working on, deep in Torchwood, and something that might not ever work – cause it isn't like they've ever managed time travel before, and they know how unstable the Void is, and temporal relocation is a tricky thing on even the best of days.

If the Doctor were here he'd scold them for even considering what they're considering, because it would tear the universe apart.

One day – years after they'd started working on it – it starts working. 'It's attuned itself to you – something about Rift energy. You're swimming in it.' Cause she didn't just cross the Void, did she? She spent years inside a box that traveled in time.

( _And there was that one time, that one time she can't remember, when she ate time's heart_.)

She tells her little brother she might not come back. And it's funny, because he's just a little bloke, but she thinks he understands. He grabs her hand with his little fingers, and she kisses his cheek.

'You keep 'em safe, duck.'

She charges the gun up, and –

It's less like breaking through walls and more like popping from one bubble to another. Time and the Void flow around her and she concentrates on the Doctor, because he needs to know the darkness is coming, that the stars are going out.

And mostly, selfishly, she just wants to get back.

––––––––––

The first time she encounters him, he doesn't have the right face. That happens a lot, actually. And wherever she goes she's looking for the him that's relative to her own timeline, as well as being at the right point in his. She's not too picky. Close enough is close enough.

She spends thirty minutes hiding in the gut of an airship, the day when Japan burns.

One day, she finds him – pinstripes and all – sitting on a low wall overlooking the sea. Something isn't right, though, she's gone too far – she can tell it – and he doesn't look up when she drops down to sit beside him. Sets her gun aside.

'Doctor.'

He turns his face just slightly, that mad brilliant face and its mad brilliant grin, and the sorrow in his eyes hits her hard. 'You're a clever thing, Rose Tyler,' he says, and swallows his grief. 'You've almost got it.'

'Thanks, I – thanks.'

'You should leave.'

'Can't. Thirty minutes downtime.'

'I should scold you for being so careless – but if the dimensions hadn't already been collapsing in on themselves, that cannon of yours wouldn't have even worked.'

'Does it end well?'

'Does it ever?'

It's a loaded enough response. The tide is coming in, and he'd been all alone.

She finds him again one day and he's been shot and he's dying and wait, no – no – this can't be how it ends –

––––––––––

She one time jumps into a universe where the Doctor is dead – dead, because he never met Donna Noble, dead, because she wasn't there to stop him when he needed to be stopped. She doesn't accept it – can't accept it – but she sees the timelines converge on Donna, and knows something must be done.

None of this was meant to happen. None of it. And Donna is so very important, even if she can't see it, even if she thinks otherwise – because of her, the Doctor lives.

Donna Noble, the most important woman in the whole of creation. 

Donna Noble, the woman who has to meet the Doctor, 

Donna Noble, the woman who'll have to die.

'Three weeks' time,' she says, and she means it. 'But you've got to be certain. Cause, when you come with me, Donna... sorry... so sorry, but... you're gonna die.'

Donna looks at her, looks at her like she's mad. Oh, they're all of them mad.

She finds her once more, when Donna has seen it for herself, that the stars are going out, winking out one by one – and she looks at Rose with eyes that are lit with understanding, fear, and determination, all in equal parts. Still, all Donna says is 'I'm ready', and that's all Rose needs to hear.

'Bad wolf,' she whispers later, against a dying woman's ear – because in dying, she'll help save them all.

––––––––––

Sometimes she feels like she's still dreaming, five more minutes and she'll get up, act like she's an adult, go through her life day by day and she'll end up on that beach again, always that same bloody beach. Because life isn't fair, hasn't the universe taught her anything – because it's given him back to her, and just as quickly, it's taken him away.

Because this time he might not be dead already but he is dying, and no, no, this isn't right, this isn't fair, she came so far and she can't lose him, not now. He'll regenerate, of course he will, he'll change himself once more and he'll be alright – but he won't be the same. He'll never be the same.

He looks so happy to see her – so happy – and he's dying and it's her fault, all her fault, if she hadn't been selfish and needed to find him, if only she –

If only she hadn't come all this way, just to lose him anyhow. Because he'll be the Doctor, he'll always be the Doctor, but what if when he changes once more, some quirk of his new personality makes him forget who she is?

Of course, Rose gets worked up and the Doctor doesn't actually regenerate, just heals himself instead. And she's happy – so happy – the sort of happy that makes her want to cry.

She doesn't know, he's already gone.

––––––––––

She'd like to think it could have ended differently, even if there are obvious parallels. Because Rose Tyler is once more standing on a beach at the end of the world – but this time, it isn't the worst day of her life.

It very well could have been a repeat – because once more she's had no choice, and once more the Doctor's left her – the both of them – without saying goodbye. It could have been a repeat, but maybe only if she'd allowed it, and she doesn't actually plan on that. Because she's made a decision – hear that, universe? She's made a decision and she's going to stick to it, no matter what.

And that decision is that she's not here because she has no other choice. Instead it's that she's made her choice, and her choice is the man who chose her – the man who's standing at her side.

The Doctor who'd said what needed to be said, what the other Doctor never could have and Rose knows never would have. The Doctor who could give her his forever, even if that forever could only ever be as long as her own.

This is her choice, just like she was his. It can't be that simple, but she's determined to see it so.

And maybe her and the Doctor – this Doctor – can put that all behind them, and finally get on with their lives.


End file.
